Banks used to be about ritual and permanence. They resembled Greek or Roman temples, with the banker playing the secular priest, dispensing loans instead of benedictions. Banks inspired awe, though their built-for- the-ages classicism was salesmanship, designed to convince depositors that their money would be safer in the vault than stuffed in a mattress.

The once-grand bank is a picture of ambition humbled by circumstance.
Visible on its limestone walls, just beneath its tiled dome, are the words: "Security Strength Stability." Yet today, the 79-year-old edifice at the corner of Oak Park Avenue and...